Flashback Springfield: Slave trial exposes legal system’s unfairness

When it came to slavery, Springfield was a mixed bag. Southern Illinois was largely pro-slavery, while northern Illinois was the opposite. We were stuck in the middle and it showed.

Our town produced the Great Emancipator president, Abraham Lincoln, yet his in-laws owned slaves here. One of his neighbors and his bootmaker were likely Underground Railroad participants. This volatile mix of pro and anti-slavery sentiments led to some interesting incidents.

One is the story of Edgar Canton. We don’t know a lot about him, but we do know that in 1860 he was a 35-year-old African-American. He likely had lived in Springfield for a couple of years or so, had a wife and children here, and might have worked at a local ironworks. But most importantly, he might have been a slave – or not.

On Feb. 9, 1860, a Missouri man named George Dickinson came here and said Canton was his fugitive slave. Canton was arrested at a home near town, where he was hiding beneath “a heavy feather bed and several blankets,” according to the next day’s Illinois State Journal. Dickinson had no papers to prove his claim; nonetheless, Canton was jailed and tried the next day.

His main lawyer was William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln’s law partner and an abolitionist. Canton was lucky to have representation at all, according to Herndon, who said in the Feb. 13 Journal that Canton was only granted counsel “by courtesy.”

The day of the trial, Herndon wrote to friends in Quincy, asking for Canton’s freedom papers, which he thought were there. “This Negro is not a slave, but I am fearful that he is in the clutches of hounds and must go to a southern Hell,” Herndon wrote. “If any white man knows him, send him here and our black population will foot the bill … if the white man knows that he is free.” (This letter is at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.)

At trial, Herndon asked the presiding U.S. Commissioner if he would postpone proceedings for a few days, so Herndon could get Canton’s freedom papers. The commissioner refused. It went downhill from there.

Despite Herndon’s and his assistant’s arguments that Dickinson couldn’t own Canton because Missouri wasn’t a slave state, the commissioner sided with Dickinson, who had no documentation to prove his story, only the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom was his brother.

Shady dealings

Canton was quickly shipped south. The jailor and some other local men took him to St. Louis, reported the Feb. 14, 1860, Journal. “We understand that his owner promised not to sell him – in consideration of a verbal pledge made by (Canton) that he would not again run away – but the fact that he left for St. Louis has rather a suspicious look, for the most direct route to Shelby, Missouri, where his owner lives, is by way of Quincy.” The paper added that Canton “admitted” he was a fugitive.

The trip to St. Louis was eventful, it even made the Feb. 21, 1860, New York Times. “By some means not generally known, (Canton) was furnished with a razor (in Springfield),” the article said. When the train neared Virden, Canton tried to cut the throat of one the men, then apologized, saying he mistook the man for another, who had helped arrest him. “The rumor of the town,” the paper continued, “is that the fugitive was sold to a Southern trader before his arrest in this city.”

According to the rumor, the trader and Dickinson had cut a deal – the trader would kidnap Canton, sell him into slavery, and give Dickinson part of the proceeds.

Sure enough, a Springfieldian spied Canton in a St. Louis “slave pen,” reported the Feb. 18 Journal. He was sold for $1,150.

But Canton had no intention of being a slave. Somehow, he escaped back to Springfield. The March 15 Journal reported that Canton’s friends wouldn’t say much about it, except to state that a friend of his in Memphis, who had “known him as a free man for nearly ten years, procured his release.”

The next day, Springfield learned the rest of the story. The Journal printed an apparently anonymous “communication” it received through the post office. It said Canton had come through the city, given “some of his friends a hearty shake hand –

And now is on his way to Canada,

That cold and dreary land;

The dire effects of slavery

He could no longer stand.

The hounds is baying on his track,

And his master just behind;

Says he resolved to bring him back

Before he shall cross the line.

Good by (sic), my sable Brother,

We will not weep for thee;

Go on your way to Canada,

Where colored men are free.”

Tara McClellan McAndrew is a Springfield native and award-winning writer who specializes in local history. She can be reached at features@sj-r.com.

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